Disruption is Coming [Follow the...

Disruption is Coming [Follow the Blockchain Road]

As blockchain continues to grow and reach its full potential, the slow and technologically rigid companies that dominate various industries will be worridly looking over their shoulders, as this technology is poised to disrupt how the world operates.

Silicon.nyc has been keeping a keen eye on blockchain as of late, and we very recently completed an 8-part series on industries that are most likely to be changed dramatically through blockchain innovation. Through this research and writing, we’ve been blown away by just how developed and innovative the worldwide blockchain community has become. If one thing has become clear, it’s that blockchain’s massive hype is not being misplaced.

Here are 4 industries that we highlighted that will be radically changed by blockchain:

Tax

Innovation grips the financial services industry tighter every day, and the demand for technical skills in the financial sector rises every day. The tax industry, however—an industry as old as modern finance itself—has by and large skirted these trends. The problem lies within the nature of, demand for, and age of tax services.

First, the average consumer has only two tax-related needs: claiming their tax return, and maximizing the amount they receive. Second, from a legal standpoint, maximizing tax returns, as well as reducing business taxation—two perennially, highly sought-after tax services—are highly complex transactions relative to either the financial expertise of the average citizen, or the ability of any business to pay for such advanced services. Third, these services, with little iteration since the dawn of modern economics, have existed for over 200 years and changed little.

Supply Chain

The average citizen knows that forces of supply and demand drive commerce, cost, and pricing for things people buy every day. What most don’t know, however, is that industrial supply chains—networks of supplier, manufacturer, and retailer companies which, together, get products to market for consumers to buy—dictate who gets what, when, where, and how fast. The inherent problem with supply chains, however, is they are at best disjointed, and at worst disorganized and unaccountable.

Worse, the advent of big data, the proliferation of information technology, and digitization of operations throughout all industries has introduced a steep learning curve for even experienced supply chain workers, making the whole proposition even more difficult. In supply chains, the main issue are asset monitoring and traceability—if a supply chain cannot adequately monitor its assets or trace phase progress and asset delivery, it is unaccountable and less likely to get products to market on time and at high quality.

Startups

Startups rise and fall everyday, but if your startup is on the blockchain, things are almost always looking up. It’s easy to say that most startups fail and blockchain is still an uncertain technology, but in terms of tractability, the technology itself is in a blue ocean, since its distributed nature invites collaboration between companies and individuals in the ecosystem.

For that reason, blockchain startups as a whole are in a unique position to reshape entire industries. And, while adoption by large corporations, such as that by Microsoft in partnership with Bank of America Merrill Lynch in June, has been forecasting comprehensive blockchain integration across tech companies and financial firms, the technology is still quite nascent and has lots of room to grow.

Financial executives, in particular, are extremely wary of small blockchain startup teams’ innovations due to the disintermediative property of the technology. If you give consumers full-service, financial firm-mimicking apps at little to no cost, and financial firms will become obsolete. Yet it’s not just financial firms that the technology is rattling. Here are 11 game-changing blockchain startups across industries poised to change the way we manage every part of our lives:

Auto

The multi-trillion dollar commercial automotive industry is as old as Ford’s original Model T, yet that does not mean it is immune to change or vested in rigidity. Indeed, increasing technological advancement is leading the Big 3 auto companies to the same conclusion that leaders in other industries have already reached: blockchain is tied up with their future.

Indeed, as the industry becomes more and more digitized with the advent of self-driving cars, in conjunction with the development of smart cities, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are finding their working mode and workflows changing, as well as their business models. These and other crucial actors in the automotive industry are finding themselves pressured to be at the forefront of digital transformation, and to embrace rather than oppose disruption, since these developments mean that cars will soon need to interact with their environments digitally to operate optimally.

Conclusion

Blockchain’s potential is remarkable, and as it grows, new visionaries will step forward to ensure that this technology reaches the heights it can. These are just a couple of industries that are slow-moving and ready to be disrupted by blockchain.

On Silicon.nyc, we will continue to watch and report on the exciting developments in this technology, both in New York City and out. Stay tuned.

If you are looking to undertake a project using blockchain, consultancy is a must, and BlockchainDriven is a leading NYC blockchain firm that specializes in small and medium sized companies.